Posted on 09/09/2015 6:04:12 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
A Gannett reporter who writes for both the Appleton Post-Crescent and USA Today covering local and Wisconsin politics, including Gov. Scott Walker’s presidential bid, signed a petition in 2011 to recall Walker from office.
Madeleine Behr is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin Madison, and she wrote for a number of publications before joining Gannett earlier this year.
Her first story for the Post-Crescent appeared online on July 2, and since then she’s published 35 stories, including four that focus on Walker’s presidential bid, and others that cover the political aspirations and maneuvers of high profile Democratic candidates.
In 2012, then-Post-Crescent publisher Genia Lovett disclosed that 25 Gannett journalists, including nine at the Post-Crescent, signed Walker recall petitions, but none of them were assigned to the political beat. “It was wrong, and those who signed were in breach of Gannett’s Principles of Ethical Conduct for Newsrooms,” Lovett wrote.
There’s no mistaking Behr’s contribution to both the Post-Crescent’s and USA Today’s political coverage. On Twitter, Behr claims she is, “Covering Wisconsin politics for @USATODAY. Local government @postcrescent.”
On November 18, 2011, Behr signed a petition to recall Walker from office. The address she lists is a UW Madison residence hall.
Joel Christopher, vice president of news for Gannett Wisconsin Media, responded to a Media Trackers inquiry about Behr’s assignment to cover Walker, saying, “We indeed are aware that Madeleine signed the Gov. Scott Walker recall election petition in 2011 because Madeleine made it a priority to tell us before she even interviewed for a reporting position with us.”
Christopher further explained that, “With Madeleine and every Gannett Wisconsin journalist whose work we put in front of the public, we invite people to read with a critical eye because we’re confident they will discover strong journalism reported fairly and accurately in a nonpartisan fashion in service of the public interest.”
“Scott Walker had his own email controversy,” blares the headline of Behr’s July 30 story about Walker, which claims that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s e-mail controversy involving classified information and secret personal servers is similar to a private e-mail network established by Walker aides when he was Milwaukee County Executive.
“While Clinton has been scrutinized for her use of private email for public purposes, Walker’s county executive office once faced questions, and even a criminal investigation, over its use of a private email system to do campaign work on public time,” Behr wrote. Her story went on to quote Jay Heck of Common Cause Wisconsin, a far-left group, and a former Democratic attorney general of Wisconsin who downplayed Clinton’s actions and played up what they thought was wrong-doing on the part of Walker.
Unlike a similar Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story, Behr never mentions that it was Democrats who first compared the Clinton e-mail situation to Walker’s aides’ actions.
Other stories Behr has written for Gannett about Walker include a column musing about the importance of Iowa to Walker’s presidential prospects, his poll numbers in Wisconsin, his plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare, and his performance in the first GOP presidential debate of the cycle.
Prior to joining the Post-Crescent / USA Today, Behr wrote for the leftwing Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, a non-profit that receives public support via its offices at a University of Wisconsin facility. A piece she wrote for the group criticizing Walker’s Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) was published by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
In college, Behr wrote for The Badger Herald, the UW Madison student newspaper. While there she penned a sympathetic portrait of a pro-union protester, wrongly claiming he was a member of the press. In another story she took up the Left’s anti-ALEC crusade, rehashing state Rep. Chris Taylor’s (D) points about the number of Wisconsin lawmakers who have attended or otherwise participated in the right-of-center legislative exchange. She also wrote about Walker.
According to her LinkedIn profile, Behr was an intern at the ultra-leftwing Center for Media and Democracy before leaving college.
Rush also backs every GOPe on election day. No matter what.
Rush personally tells his audience he is an entertainer. Are you not entertained?
Repeat the lie often enough...
It was illegal for that router to be a government office, period. The use of it to conduct campaign business on state time was illegal. It does not depend on what the meaning of the word “Is” is.
Pretty soon, we’ll have reporters covering politicians, when those reporters recently walked into the candidate’s headquarters, shooting.
Walker’s record and successes on tax cuts, life, gun rights, voter id, education, unions, illegal instate tuition revoked, etc show his conservatism.
Failure?
Only to someone who wanted him to fail.
I am retired. When I was working, I adhered strictly to policy and never used my computer at work for anything but work. We had very strict security requirements and some people lost their jobs by violating them.
Democrats with bylines and FReepers with lie-lines, what won’t they say?
He continued, "Not only did we consider that a non-issue, we found that this indicator of extreme bias and total rage against a candidate was actually a credential. It's something we look for."
Lieberals lie. Conservativejoy lies. Coincidence?
You’re correct. Journalism has always been a form of propaganda, hence the need for freedom of speech not just to publicly denounce political speech, but to refute the lies.
Rush also said we had to vote for a guy that makes money BBQing dead babies for Planned Parenthood so his ‘Conservative’ opinion is duly noted.
Come to Illinois where our Attorney General Lisa Madigan, daughter of the decades long power broker and IL Speaker of the House Mike Madigan cannot find a single Democrat to indict. They run the state as a personal fiefdom just like the Saudis.
What lie? Are you denying there was an illegal router used from a government office to campaign for Walker? Tell that to the ones convicted.
Give it up. Walker has done himself in. Get off, the horse is dead and on his way to the glue factory.
Now, newbie FReeper ‘conservativejoy’ is trying to convince you to believe the MSM and lieberals, just like a conservative would, right?
CJ is a troll and likely a Democrat union troll. They’re solidly anti-Walker and of all the candidates Walker is the one they most want to defeat. He’ll cripple the Democrat money machine of government money to unions to Dem politicians and back again.
I’m not from WI, so I don’t have all the facts. When I suggested Walker had seemed awfully passive re the SWAT teams sicced on innocent parties, I was informed that Walker was under a gag order.
That explanation didn’t quite satisfy. When the opposition is using SS tactics against your innocent supporters, you FIND a way to strike back. Passivity/helplessness just does not cut it.
“....It’s more than the invasions of privacy by the investigation. The investigators collected and combed through the emails of the John Doe targets without their knowledge. The personal information of the targets and anyone tangentially related to them were at risk of being leaked or even publicly “dumped” as part of the process.
It’s more than the corrupting influence the John Doe investigation had on the coverage of politics by the state’s newspapers. The state’s newspapers locked arms and danced a Can-Can to the left while kicking to the right in defense of the John Doe investigation in front of their continually shrinking audience. In a normal world, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s editor George Stanley would be forced to explain how national and alternative media sources uncovered the abuses of the John Doe investigation his newspaper ignored. Instead, Stanley received a promotion. Chris Rickert in the Wisconsin State Journal even called criticism of the John Doe investigation, “self-righteous whining.” .....
*************
Excerpts from WI Supreme Court ruling to shut down investigations:
“To be clear, this conclusion ends the John Doe investigation because the special prosecutor’s legal theory is unsupported in either reason or law. Consequently, the investigation is closed. Consistent with our decision and the order entered by Reserve Judge Peterson, we order that the special prosecutor and the district attorneys involved in this investigation must cease all activities related to the investigation, return all property seized in the investigation from any individual or organization, and permanently destroy all copies of information and other materials obtained through the investigation. All Unnamed Movants are relieved of any duty to cooperate further with the investigation.”...
“...Our lengthy discussion of these three cases can be distilled into a few simple, but important, points. It is utterly clear that the special prosecutor has employed theories of law that do not exist in order to investigate citizens who were wholly innocent of any wrongdoing. In other words, the special prosecutor was the instigator of a “perfect storm” of wrongs that was visited upon the innocent Unnamed Movants and those who dared to associate with them. It is fortunate, indeed, for every other citizen of this great State who is interested in the protection of fundamental liberties that the special prosecutor chose as his targets innocent citizens who had both the will and the means to fight the unlimited resources of an unjust prosecution. Further, these brave individuals played a crucial role in presenting this court with an opportunity to re-endorse its commitment to upholding the fundamental right of each and every citizen to engage in lawful political activity and to do so free from the fear of the tyrannical retribution of arbitrary or capricious governmental prosecution. Let one point be clear: our conclusion today ends this unconstitutional John Doe investigation.”....
When the superpac supporting Walker hired GOPe hit man Brad Dayspring, and Walker had crickets to say about it, some made a connection.
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